From immediate pressure to confident, evidence-led plans
Making decisions about the future of their services is a reality for local authorities across Wales.
Rising demand, financial pressure, changing population needs and increasing expectations mean that short-term fixes are no longer enough. Councils need clear evidence, realistic options and practical plans that can turn ambition into lasting change.
We help local authorities understand the pressures they face, explore what is possible and develop sustainable, deliverable plans for the future.
Planning for change in your council?
Talk to us about your priorities, evidence gaps and next steps.
Turning complex challenges into practical plans
Planning future services means looking beyond the immediate problem.
It means understanding what is driving demand, what communities will need in the years ahead and how services, people, systems and places need to adapt in response.
We bring together evidence, engagement, service insight and practical delivery experience to help councils:
- Understand current and future demand
- Identify operational pressures, risks and opportunities
- Gather and test the evidence needed for decision-making
- Explore different service models and options
- Engage staff, communities, partners and other stakeholders
- Develop credible business cases for investment
- Redesign services around future need
- Turn agreed recommendations into practical implementation plans
Our support can begin with a focused review or diagnostic conversation and develop into options appraisal, business case development, service redesign or implementation support.
How we can support you
Diagnose the pressure
We help you build an honest, evidence-based picture of what is happening across your services.
This can include reviewing demand, performance, costs, workforce pressures, systems, processes, service quality and operational risk.
Understand future need
We bring together data, service knowledge and stakeholder perspectives to explore how population needs, expectations and local circumstances are changing.
Test the options
We help you identify and assess realistic options, considering their potential benefits, costs, risks, dependencies and practical implications.
Build the case for change
We develop clear, credible business cases that give senior leaders and elected members the evidence they need to make informed decisions about investment and transformation.
Plan for delivery
Our work does not end with a report. We can help translate recommendations into prioritised actions, implementation plans and achievable programmes of change.
Planning sustainable older people’s services
Older people’s services cannot be planned in isolation.
Accommodation, residential care, community support, care markets, prevention, wellbeing, housing and place all need to work together around the needs of local people.
We help social care leaders develop sustainable approaches that respond to:
- Changing population needs
- Financial and workforce pressures
- Fragile care markets
- Ageing buildings and infrastructure
- Growing complexity of need
- Demand for residential and community-based support
- Opportunities for prevention and early intervention
- The need for stronger connections between care, health, housing and communities
Our experience includes:
- Older people’s service reviews
- Residential care feasibility studies
- Care home improvement
- Accommodation and service planning
- Care market resilience and market stability
- Fee methodology
- Service remodelling
- Population needs analysis
- Integrated hub development
- Stakeholder and partnership facilitation
Future services are also about place
Sustainable services depend on more than individual organisations or service areas.
Councils increasingly need to connect care, housing, health, regeneration, prevention and community wellbeing within shared, place-based plans.
Practice Solutions can bring partners together to:
- Develop a shared understanding of local need
- Explore integrated hubs and community-based models
- Connect accommodation, care and prevention
- Consider intergenerational and dementia-friendly approaches
- Identify opportunities for collaboration and investment
- Turn broad partnership ambitions into practical options
This creates a stronger foundation for decisions about how services and places should evolve together.
In practice: reviewing six local authority care homes
Building the evidence for investment in residential care
A Welsh local authority commissioned Practice Solutions to undertake a business process and operational review of its six local authority-managed care homes for older people, with a combined registered capacity of around 200 beds.
The council needed an independent, evidence-based understanding of the pressures affecting the homes and clear recommendations that could support a business case for investment.
Our multidisciplinary team:
- Visited all six care homes
- Listened to registered managers, deputy managers, frontline staff and, where possible, residents and families
- Interviewed senior stakeholders
- Reviewed relevant policies, systems and data
- Observed processes in practice
- Tested findings across the different homes
The review identified systemic pressures, including the amount of management time being absorbed by administration, reliance on paper-based processes, high sickness absence and gaps in corporate support.
We produced a comprehensive report with prioritised and costed recommendations, organised around quick wins, high-impact investment and structural change. The report was accepted without amendment and gave the council evidence it could use to support its case for investment.
What the review demonstrated
Independent review can do more than describe a problem. It can reveal its causes, establish its impact and provide a practical route towards change.
For staff, the process provided an opportunity to be heard. For the council, it created a clear foundation for investment and transformation. For residents, it represented a step towards enabling care teams to spend less time managing inefficient processes and more time focused on care.
‘The information she was able to garner from participants by taking that approach was far beyond what the client had anticipated.’
Caitlin Snuggs, Lead Researcher, Practice Solutions
Why work with Practice Solutions?
Independent insight
We provide an objective perspective while working sensitively with the people who understand services best.
Evidence that supports decisions
Our reviews are designed to give leaders clear, reliable evidence, not simply broad observations.
Genuine engagement
We use appreciative, relationship-based approaches that help staff and stakeholders contribute openly and constructively.
The right expertise for the work
Our associate model allows us to bring together people with the right combination of research, operational and sector experience for each commission.
Practical recommendations
We organise findings around decisions and actions, helping clients distinguish between immediate improvements, priority investments and longer-term structural change.
Support from analysis to implementation
Alongside reviews and business cases, we can support engagement, service redesign, programme planning and implementation.
Start with a diagnostic conversation
You may already know that a service needs to change but need help establishing the evidence, identifying the right options or building support for investment.
A short initial conversation can help us explore:
- The pressures you are experiencing
- The decisions your organisation needs to make
- The evidence you already have
- Where important gaps remain
- Who needs to be involved
- What a proportionate next step could look like
Whether you are reviewing a single service, planning sustainable older people’s services or considering wider transformation across your council, we can help you move from pressure and complexity to a clear, deliverable plan.